SOME SHOPPING MALLS BAN SMOKING BEFORE STATE MANDATES IT

Virginia Rall suddenly has become very familiar with the bicycle and motorcycle racks in the parking garage of Galleria mall.

Not by choice.

The department store saleswoman has been banished there by the movement against indoor smoking, which has now spread to shopping malls.

Instead of huffing lunchtime smokes on cushiony chairs in the mall concourse, Rall has trudged to the garage since the Fort Lauderdale mall went smoke-free last week.

"I'm tired of people dictating," Rall said. "I like to get away from people on my lunch hour, read the paper and smoke, get some quiet. It's a big mall. You could have a little smoking area without bothering anyone."

No you can't, the state says.

On July 29, citing the dangers of second-hand smoke, state health officials proposed new rules under Florida's Clean Indoor Air Act to ban smoking in walkways, food courts and all common areas of indoor malls.

Because virtually all stores already forbid smoking under the law, that would leave enclosed restaurants and tobacco shops as the final oases for the smoking mallhound.

Since the ban was unveiled, three of Broward's 10 malls, the Galleria and the Broward and Coral Square malls, have voluntarily doused smoking. So has the Boynton Beach Mall.

The malls put up polite signs announcing the new policies. Smokers now gather outside most mall entrances.

"The customers like it," said Bob Farnes, general manager of Coral Square. "It has gone a lot better than we expected."

Sawgrass Mills megamall in Sunrise will follow the trend on Oct. 1.

"We have a lot of requests from people that we go non-smoking, and we like to do what's best for the customers and their health," said Dan Cetina, general manager of Sawgrass Mills. "Smokers have [to abstain) on the airlines, and they have done so in public transportation, so they understand."

Broward's other malls plan to do nothing about smoking until the state tells them to. The Smoke N Snuff tobacco store chain challenged the rule, delaying the Oct. 1 ban by at least a month.

"We'll do what the rule says. That doesn't means we have to like it," said Cynthia Baker, general manager of Lauderhill Mall.

The Gardens of the Palm Beaches mall sent a letter to the state saying the rule is flawed. Although the clean-air act bans smoking in all open areas of retail stores, it does not mention mall common areas, the letter said.

"The [state) rules are not going to hold water if they are challenged," said Jim C. McCarten, assistant general manager at the Palm Beach Gardens mall.

But the state's interpretation is that common areas of malls are no different from aisles of retail stores, said State Epidemiologist Dr. Richard Hopkins.

Some merchants fear the precedent set by declaring malls as public places. The malls could no longer keep out political campaigners, church groups, solicitors or anyone else pushing a cause, mall officials said.

"Then we become a forum for political rallies, and we have to operate more like a park than a bunch of businesses," said Eric Dewey, marketing manager at Pembroke Lakes Mall.

Dewey also wondered who would enforce the ban if a smoker refused to obey the warning cards that mall guards hand out.

"Do you think the police will come in for an illegal smoker?" he said.